


To Love Again

by bedb



Category: Black Widow - Fandom, Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky hates himself, Bucky needs to learn to love and forgive himself, Daisy fears for his sanity, F/M, Loss and Grief, Natasha and Clint are back together, Steve is skeptical, contemplating ending it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:44:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2429294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedb/pseuds/bedb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gave up Natasha because he didn't want her hurt anymore than she already was, but he secretly harbored the hope she would one day remember him. Only now he learns that she has hooked back up with Clint. Daisy fears he's one rifle cleaning away from eating a bullet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unconsolable grief

Daisy heard the clack clack clack of little feet on the deck and knew that Bucky’s aardvark, the sacred Reznor was loose and looking for something to eat. Hard to be an aardvark on satellite station when there are no ant mounds to tear into for food. It ambled into the control room its snout searching every corner and crack for something to eat. Daisy looked at the thing and smiled. ‘Daddy’ was not in a good mood right now.

“Come here, girl,” she said and scooped the animal up. “Daddy’ was in a deep funk, but that did not give him the right to starve his baby. As pets went the sacred Reznor was not all that companionable. It ate, grunted and left little presents on the deck which Daisy refused to clean up after. She had argued on giving the animal back to Syro or at least a zoo where he could go visit it once in awhile. Animals had no place on sterile satellite stations.

Bucky did not want to get out of bed today. If there was ever a time he actually wanted his brain wiped, it was now. How long has it been, a year, longer? Why did it still feel like yesterday? Why couldn’t he let her go? Natasha. He missed her terribly. Yesterday he actually contacted her and pretended it was an accidental call, that he had been looking for Steve, who was off somewhere with Sharon Carter. Natasha had smiled at him. Told him that she and Clint had patched up their differences and were back together. Bucky had said he was happy for her, and he was…for her, but for himself if was a nightmare. They say men don’t cry, but that didn’t keep his heart from breaking again. And if the pain didn’t go away soon, he was going to eat one. He just knew he was.

Hearing the bell over his hatch ring, he snarled, “Go away!”

Daisy opened it anyway. Seeing Bucky naked on his bunk might have titillated a lot of women, but it had no effect on her. She liked her playmates as soft as he did, although she would not have minded if he covered his waist. It was like seeing your brother naked; it didn’t turn you on, but you’d just as soon not see his junk.

“You going to cover up?” she asked curiously, the sacred Reznor in hand.

“No,” he growled and stared defiantly at the overhead.

Daisy set the aardvark on the bed beside him and announced, “It needs food.”

“I bought it some,” he replied and let his metal hand slide over the creature now running its long nose down his side. Claws and nose quickly got too close to his groin and he covered.

Daisy smiled. “I couldn’t find it.”

Bucky thought about it a moment and frowned. “Fuck,” he growled and got up, his covers landing on top of the surprised aardvark thingie. He had not dropped the bag off in the galley like he was supposed to. It was still in the overhead in his cabin. Getting it down he ripped the top off and found something to pour it into a bowl while Daisy rescued the squeaking animal and set it on the floor. The smell of dried grubs and ants lured it to the bowl on the deck.

When Bucky raised his head, Daisy was staring at him. “What?”

“You gotta let it go, man.”

He knew what she was talking about and frowned. “If it was easy, don’t you think I would have?”

“Get yourself another woman and pretend to like her. Maybe you will eventually.” Seeing the hurt look in his eyes, she reconsidered her statement. “At least get laid.”

Discussing sex with a woman who wasn’t interested in him, just seemed odd, but then Daisy was taken on because she was the best rifleman aside from himself that he could find, plus she had been a trusted associate of Nick Fury’s. If he wanted a female companion who could shoot…and….

Daisy watched as the grief settled back over him. He was dying inside missing that woman. Part of the hurt was that he never got to say good-bye to Natasha. She simply woke up remembering everyone but him. How can you not remember your first love? She remembered that he shot her. Bullshit! How can you remember the bullet holes and not the kisses? As men went Bucky was a hell of a lot prettier than Clint….sorry, love yah like a brother…..seriously Natasha, you know by now there was more to you and him than bullet holes. 

Damn! Damn! Damn! “Get some clothes on,” she snapped.

“My cabin,” he muttered and shoved the dark unruly hair away from his face.

“Yeah, well, we’re going to Mars.”

“What for?”

“When was the last time you were with a woman who wasn’t Natasha?” OK that brought a fresh tear sliding down his cheek. “That long, huh? Get dressed or I’m calling Steve to come get you. In fact, I think Steve might be just the thing.”

“I don’t know where he and Sharon are,” he said and savagely wiped the traitorous tears away from his face.

“Yeah, well I know.”

 

Steve and Sharon were on the space station by day’s end. Sharon was the one who had the right instincts to wrap Bucky in her arms and let him cry. Steve sat beside them and rubbed Bucky’s back while Daisy looked on with the sacred aardvark thingie sitting at her feet.

“I don’t know if this is what he really needs,” Steve said to Daisy.

“Believe me, getting laid is just what he needs,” Daisy responded confidentially. Motioning for Steve to follow her, she led him into the passage and asked, “Did you know Natasha is back with Clint?”

“Yes, Tony told me.”

“And it never occurred to any of you to let me know, so that when your best friend for life found out and had his little nervous break down, I’d at least be ready for it?”

Steve looked painfully frustrated. “And you think a prostitute is the answer?”

“Steve, God love you, most men feel better after getting laid, so I’m told. And I’m not talking about a cheap by the hour girl, I’m talking about Andessa.”

“Don’t know her.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Andessa is like the most amazing woman out there. I’ve already contacted her, and explained the situation…even sent a picture of Bucky to her. Thought if she could see how handsome he was, she might take his case.” Thinking it best not to keep any secrets, she added, “I told her he was an Avenger as extra enticement. She’s a sexual therapist, among other qualifications and by law she has to keep his secret.”

“Did she accept?”

“Yes. I thought you and Sharon could do a little shopping and honeymooning while Andessa helps our friend.”

“How much is this costing?”

“Not as much as a real funeral would,” she answered angrily. How could Steve think price when his best friend was one rifle cleaning away from permanently checking out of the world?

Steve relented. “All right, when do we do this?”

“She’s working him in as an emergency. You leave tomorrow and contact her the moment you get there. She will be with him for twenty-four hours.”

Steve wasn’t sure about this, but Bucky’s grief was genuine. He had not gotten over Natasha, and now that she was back with Clint, he was devastated. Had he always harbored the hope that one day it would all reconnect and she would remember him?

Steve checked out this woman Andessa and was surprised to learn that she was a real therapist whose specialty was personal relationships. This gave him an easier feeling than the idea that she was just a sex therapist. Bucky was quietly subdued as he walked between him and Sharon down the passage leading to her office. For him to be willing to visit a therapist, he had to have been in a real bad way. Bucky was not the kind of man to ask anyone for help.

Ringing the bell of the office door, Steve stepped back and waited. He was not going to turn Bucky loose until he was certain there was nothing here to hurt him more. After all the years of protecting him, he needed to take care of Bucky when he was this fragile emotionally.

The door slid open and for a moment Steve wondered if this was the right place. The woman did not look the way he imagined a therapist. She was extremely attractive with dark hair and blue eyes and a flimsy thigh length scrub jacket that was nearly transparent, and he could see everything that she had been born with.

She met his surprised gaze and smiled. “Capt. America? I am honored to meet your acquaintance,” she said and then turned that smile on Bucky. “Sgt. Barnes,” she greeted him and stepped back so all three of them could enter the spacious office that looked more like someone’s home than office. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize you,” she told Sharon who gave her first name and nothing else. “Can I fix you a small drink before you leave?” she asked Steve and Sharon.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Steve said awkwardly as he noticed two young women even scantilier clad than Andessa sitting by a sliding door that open on to a small garden under a domed sky.

“Do we meet your approval then?” Andessa asked with an understanding smile. “Your friend is in good hands.”

“All right,” Steve conceded and turned to Bucky. “Call me in a couple of hours and let me know if everything is OK.”

Andessa almost chuckled at this. “You are free to call whenever you like,” she told Steve, “but there won’t be much time for long conversations except when we dine, perhaps.” Now came the long pregnant pause before Steve surrendered his best friend to the woman with the degree if not the body.

The moment it was just them, Andessa sent her assistants away for the time being so she and the sergeant could visit in private. To make him a little more comfortable she fixed a very weak mixed drink, basically to give his hands something to do while they talked. She liked the fact that he would glance at her breasts a moment or two before dropping his gaze.

“Sgt. Barnes,” she began gently, “tell me what’s going on in your life right now.” That simple statement opened a floodgate of raw emotions and eventually tears. Here in front of her was what was left of the Winter Soldier, and he was dying inside because the only woman he had ever loved, the only bright star in his dismal life that moved on without him because she couldn’t remember what he once was to her. 

“Have you seen anyone since the last time you saw her?”

“Haven’t wanted to,” he said and took a sip of the extremely diluted drink.

“How often do you masturbate?” she asked. 

He gave her a dark look before saying, “I don’t know.” Andessa knew he was lying. That dark look had said it all; he hated himself. He probably never touched himself, and when Natasha left him, not of her own free will, he lost the only person who had ever seen value and beauty in him.

She stood and pressed a button on the table beside her chair. “It’s time to undress now Sgt. Barnes.” The girls appeared, one a golden white the other a rich chocolate color. They knelt at his feet and removed his boots and then helped him stand. He watched Andessa with those dark eyes while the girls removed his jacket and shirt and then attacked his belt and leggings. He didn’t fight them but there was no life in his body. Andessa thought he was breathtakingly beautiful.

“Lay on the table, Sgt. Barnes. They are going to give you a complete rub down that hopefully will end in an orgasm for you.”

He did as she said, and rested his head on top of his crossed arms. No one had ever rubbed his back, much less touched him the entire time they had used him as a weapon against others. Heather and Coco poured warm oil down his spine to pool in hollow before his hips. Both of them ran their fingers through it and ran their hands up his back to his shoulders. Their fingers dug into the muscles that lined his spine and sides and worked every kink and knot loose. Andessa stood at his head and massaged his scalp and caressed his face. At a nod from her the girls attacked his flanks with that same deep muscle massage. Someone’s finger slid lower and stroked him intimately. 

“No,” he growled and tried to rise up. Andessa indicated with a nod of her head that Coco needed to stop. 

“Were you ever raped, Sgt. Barnes?” she asked as the girls resumed their tender mercies.

“What does that matter?” he answered barely aloud. 

“Did you kill them?” she asked and stroked his jaw and the part of his throat she could reach without causing him discomfort.

There was a long pause and then, “Yes.”

The girls moved down to his thighs, back of his knees, calves and then his feet. Andessa could see from the way he closed his eyes and parted his lips that he really liked the way they were working over his feet. 

“Turn over,” she said and guided him on to his back. “And watch me.” She didn’t want him focusing on the girls as they poured the warm oil over his abdomen. Once more they slid their hands up his body to the heavy muscle of his breast. They avoided his nipples for the time being and his cock when they worked back down his belly to his thighs, but the touch was still intimate enough to get a slight rise out of him.

Andessa smiled as his face turned from hurt and angry to awe. The girls slid their hands back up his body to pay attention to his nipples now. Only they added something that made him raise his head and stare down his body. Small clamps not designed to inflict pain only to spread the pleasure through out his body had been attached to his nipples.

He shuddered as Heather massaged his breast and circled his nipples with teasing caresses. Coco dipping the palms of her hands in what was left of the oil on his belly turned her attention to his cock and grasped it firmly but gently in both hands. She stroked him to a full erection, her fingers working magic as they ran from the base or his penis to the head and around the glans beneath the foreskin. 

Andessa, supporting the back of his head and neck, reminded him to look at her, to just let the sensations wash over him and not hold back. He was beautiful, his breathing deep and steady, his pupils so dark as to hide the color from his eyes. He licked his lips. And then he arched his back as a powerful orgasm ripped silently through him. Andessa smiled at what would be the first of many she hoped.


	2. Good-bye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky learns to love himself, to take control of his own life and to say good bye to the only woman he may ever love.

It came as no surprise to Andessa that Sgt. Barnes and Natasha often made love in the shower after almost anything. Bucky had sacrificed his happiness to keep her from suffering anymore, but the more he talked about her the more Andessa realized that Natasha had controlled their relationship. The shower was her favorite place to have sex, so easy to wash off afterwards. 

Sitting nude by the small indoor pool under a geometric dome, she asked, “When was your first kiss?”

“With Natasha or a girl?” he asked and hung on the side of the pool, ease in his expression that had not been there earlier. “Whichever,” she answered.

“Mary Beth Haskell,” he answered with a big grin. “I was thirteen and she was fifteen. I thought I’d hit the jackpot.”

“Was she the one who taught you about life?”

“Girls were different back then. You petted a lot on dates sometimes, but you didn’t do it.”

“Did you masturbate back then?”

He smiled shyly but answered, “Yeah. Only way to keep from going crazy.”

“Tell me about your first time.”

He thought about it a moment and then said, “I was seventeen. Kinda young for that generation. She was older….” He stopped and looked up at Andessa. “Guess I like older women.”

“Or you let women be in control,” she added. “Continue.”

“Her name was Canesta…don’t remember her last name….but she was in her twenties. Her brother was a friend of mine and Stevie’s.

“Did she get you drunk?”

“She didn’t have to, but yeah. I don’t think I impressed her.” His grin was so open and vulnerable and honest.

“A seventeen year old virgin loaded up on booze? I’m surprised you made it past the thought.” He laughed. “What about Natasha?”

“I was older than her,” he said, seriousness returning to his face.

“Did you seduce her?”  
“I wasn’t her first, if that’s what you mean.” He looked around uncomfortably. The things that were done to all of them in the Red Room was criminal in today’s society.

“Did you seduce her or did she seduce you?” Andessa gently repeated. 

“I trained her. It was after one hard workout, and I was unwrapping my hands when she touched my face and kissed me.” He stopped as realization settled over him. “I know I hit on women when I was in the army,” he said with a frown on his face.

“But the choice was still in their hands to say yes or no.”

“Isn’t that how it always is?”

“Yes, but with Natasha you didn’t have to go look. She came to you and you accepted her offer. After you were freed from Hydra, who initiated the relationship?”

He lowered his head, the memory of that kiss still burning into his brain. “She did. She told me she remembered everything.” He pressed his flesh and blood hand to his lips lost in memory. He had learned to please her, and now she didn’t need him anymore. His mind and body were lost without her. The girl had trained the soldier, not the other way around.

Poor soldier Andessa thought and leaned over to gently lift his chin so that he was looking at her. She thumbed his lips. “What do you want to do?” she asked softly.

“I want to kiss you,” he answered, his voice heavy and rich with raw emotion. He pushed himself up on the side of the pool where he could draw her into his arms. They were strong arms, one flesh and blood, one metal, but they held her gently. His kiss was anything but gentle. It was fierce and angry and proud and hungry. Andessa yielded her mouth to his and parted her lips for the fierce attack of his tongue. So much passion unleashed on her. He was devouring her mouth with his. Without warning he suddenly picked her up and carried her back inside the living area and sat her in her large chair. “I want to eat you,” he said and dropped down on his knees in front of her.

There was no point in asking a dumb question. Sgt. Barnes had perfected his skills in the bed of the woman he loved more than life. Whatever he did to Andessa, it was what Natasha had taught him. He was reliving his love affair with her. Andessa folded her hands around his face and made him look up at her. “I like it slow and sexy with lots of licking.” He stared at her a moment through the fringe of long dark lashes over his eyes.

He lowered his head to her pussy but kept his eyes on her face while he slid his tongue ever so slowly over the core of her being. Once he was content that her helpless expression was genuine, he closed his eyes. Andessa loved oral sex, and most men were good at, but this was the only man she’s ever met who acted as if it was expected of him and was a point in his manhood. Natasha had trained her poor brain damaged lover to perfection. 

As his talented tongue drove her closer and closer to an incredible orgasm, he added two fingers to the mix and started slowly fucking her with them. No longer thinking about anything but reaching her climax, Andessa wrapped her long sleek legs around his neck and clung tightly to him as the first bone crunching orgasm ripped through her. Somewhere in the middle of it, she hoped he was able to breathe.

When she could take no more, she pushed his head back and freed his neck. His eyes dark with lust as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand stayed on her face. The heat in his eyes came from the simple knowledge that it was now his turn.

“Do you want to fuck me, or would you like me to suck you?”

His reaction surprised her. For a brief instance she was certain he had had a small mental orgasm, his eyes closing and his mouth going slack for a moment. He had been starving for affection. Rising from the chair, she took his hand and helped him stand. He didn’t ask where they were going, but she led him back to her bedroom. It was rare she brought clients back here, but this beautiful man, so wounded and hurt, had attached himself to a part of her brain and heart that were rarely touched. 

She made him lay back, his head on the white lace pillows, his body spread out on the comforter like a feast ready to be partaken of. Andessa made herself comfortable and lifted his erection in one hand to study it a moment. “I’m going to insert one finger inside of you,” she said and then ran her tongue along the underside of his cock. He said nothing but reached for the head board behind him with both hands and held on. Symbolic bondage. Who had tied him down?

She sucked long and hard on his cock, pausing only once to keep him from coming too quickly. Positioning herself and wetting her finger with spit, she gently worked her way inside of his body with one finger. When he realized that she meant him no harm, he relaxed and sank into the sensations she was dragging out of him. He was swimming in his own blood, his skin burning hot when the orgasm hit. Andessa stayed with him and swallowed every drop when he exploded silently into her mouth. She was never going to be able to break him of that terrible silence. 

Steve checked on them in the middle of their evening meal. Buck, he had told her to call him Buck, informed his friend that he was all right. He didn’t tell Steve that he was sitting on the floor naked eating pricey food off a fancy coffee table, at least that was what it looked like to him.

Afterwards there was more conversation and the realization that he was afraid to let go of Natasha because he had not been in control of his own mind and body for so long that he was afraid of it. If she didn’t love him, he was lost. Andessa had him masturbate in front of her. He had liked the little shock to his nipples and wanted to experience it again. Andessa gave him the small clamps.

Somewhat drained from the previous orgasms, he took his time and found the places that he liked which didn’t focus entirely on his cock. Able to see himself in the mirror on the wall, he couldn’t help but watch. There was no hurry or urgency.

Andessa made eye contact in the mirror and found she could not look away. He was watching her watch him. Something in his brain clicked, and too late she realized he was seducing her with his incredible eyes. Turning away from the mirror, she gazed down into his passion-darkened face. His mouth was soft and tender, and she wanted to kiss him to drink down his passion and take that silent lust into her mouth and swallow it whole. 

Sleep enfolded him in her arms for a few hours, giving Andessa a chance to jot down some notes. She was still a therapist and needed to recommend a course of treatment outside of her bed. The treatment was painfully simple, he needed to stop clinging to the hope that Natasha would remember him and become his lover once more. He needed to tell himself that that was never going to happen and it wasn’t his fault. And until he got his confidence back, how he lacked it was beyond her, he ought to visit professional women in safe establishments. 

He was dead to the world and she saw no need to wake him. Still that did not mean that they didn’t draw two more incredible orgasms out of him before Steve came to collect him. His friend wasn’t cured, but he was on his way to recovery.

 

Bucky was hurt some time around Christmas and the arm was damaged. Tony talked him and Daisy into sticking around for the New Year’s Party after the arm was repaired. Bucky knew Steve would never forgive him if he split without seeing him. Of course that meant he would probably run into Natasha. She looked incredible, and Clint was clearly a happy man. They greeted him and shook his hands and asked how he was going. Fine, fine, fine. Champagne. Steve! Yeah, that’s Daisy’s new girlfriend. No, not yet, you know me. Happy New Year!

Bucky was going to go on, leaving Daisy behind to find her own way home; she was a big girl. Grabbing his black leather jacket which went well with his monochromatic color scheme, he head for the doors, when he heard Natasha calling to him.

A lump settled in his breast as he waited for her to catch up to him.

“Leaving so soon, Barnes?”

He closed his eyes and choked on his emotions. Schooling his face, he smiled and turned to her. “Yeah, I needed to get home. I can only imagine what the aardvark has done up there.”

“You’ve become a stranger.”

“Yeah, I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy for friends?”

This was it, the moment of truth. Choking down a sad smile, he said, “We can’t be friends, Nat. I love you too much to be just a friend.” Before she could get the stunned expression off her face, he bent down and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Good-bye, Nat.”

**Author's Note:**

> Two chapters is all this will take. The idea has been playing in my demented brain from the time I read about him giving her up until reading Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier. She was the only good thing in his miserable life, and now he doesn't even have the hope anymore.


End file.
